Camilla* held out at arms’ length that emerald green gown, the one cut low. Decades after she dazzled in it, she would still visit that dress, those memories, now tucked away in the back corner of the closet.
“The first time Tom saw me sing, I was wearing this dress,” Camilla told me as we sorted through her Kardashian-sized wardrobe in preparation for her upcoming move. Today we were working in her guest room’s walk-in closet, making piles of colorful vintage dresses: Keep, Sell and Give Away. Still pretty in her late 80’s, Camilla perched on a little chintz chair, awash in the evidence of the life she once lived.
“We had a small crowd that first night he came in,” she said, taking herself back 60 years to when she sang in an Indianapolis jazz band. “The guy who ran the lights and sound invited his brother, Tom, to the show.”
I leaned in, leaving the day’s tasks behind. “Oh, Camilla! Keep going… I love love stories!” It’s true. Learning the stories of how my elderly downsizing clients met, fell in love and stayed married was a favorite part of my job. Twice divorced and dedicated to make my third marriage a success, I clambered for the secrets to a long term partnership. What do these wives have that I lack? Is there some undisclosed Do and Don’t list I should know about? Or is it all in some sort of never-fail Spousal Selection Process that I missed?
Camilla needed not another prompting. That green dress was grease enough for her to dive back into her long marriage’s dawning days.
Tom was in town just for one night, she explained. He wanted to see his brother and their plan was to get a beer after the show.
“Well, this dress worked some magic! I saw him staring at me when I sang ‘Whatever Lola Wants’ and thought ‘Who’s that handsome man?’” Camilla said, still smiling at the memory. The entire show they kept their eyes on each other, an invisible pull immune to her better senses. She was 28, her parents would remind her, and it was time to leave unserious men behind. She didn’t disagree.
When the music ended and the applause thinned, she saw Tom head backstage. He made his way to Camilla. He was in town just for the night, he explained, and could he buy her a drink?
Oh, she thought, he’s looking for a one-night lover. “I turned him down,” she said.
“What do I have to do for you to go out with me?” Tom asked Camilla.
“You need to live in Indianapolis and be interested in more than just one night,” she replied, although she admitted she practically purred her way through the rejection, hoping he’d somehow morph into an Indiana man.
Dejected, but not dissuaded, Tom said he’d be back.
And so it went for months. Tom would drive the four hours in for each Saturday’s set and Camilla would sing to him all evening. He’d come backstage after the show and they’d talk. And laugh. And flirt. But no date. No after-show drinks. Camilla was wary, she said. “I knew from experience how it would go. All smooth talk until he got me into bed and then I’d never see him again. Not interested. I’d kissed enough frogs, toads and toadstools! I was too old for that!”
Then one Saturday night Tom had a different, a more serious look, when he appeared backstage.
“Camilla, you said you’d go out with me if I lived in Indianapolis. As of today, I do,” he said. After that first night, he explained, being caught up in her voice and that green dress, Tom asked his boss at the bank to transfer him from Chicago to Indianapolis. It finally came through. He starts Monday. “Now will you go out with me?” he asked Camilla.
“Of course I said yes! It woulda been mean if I didn’t!” she laughed.
They married four months after that first date. It had been 39 years and three children when Tom passed away from a stroke in the night.
“We had a good marriage… but it wasn’t all good times. We had some bumpy times,” Camilla said.
I needed to know. “How did you make it through? The bumpy times?” I asked, always eager to learn.
“We had our children and our church. They helped keep us together. We were also always honest with each other, which probably led to our loudest arguments,” she said. Well, that tracks, I thought. A lack of all-around honesty and NOT hashing out disagreements doomed my first marriage. (As for my second marriage, that was in the shitter right from the Spousal Selection Process.)
Camilla continued. “And when we got into a bad spot in one of those fights, Tom knew how to calm it down. He’d play some Ella Fitzgerald. And we figured it out.”
Figure it out. My husband and I can do that.
*Clint names changed for their privacy.
I love stories like this! Thank you for sharing.
A great piece, Anne Marie. Sounds like Camilla was a wise bird!